


When Your Birthday Passed

by WineLipps



Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal
Genre: Angst, Autumn, Bad at tagging, F/M, Ficlet, Implied Sexual Content, Loneliness, Ren smells like coffee, Unfullfilled feelings, inspired by another fic, shumako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WineLipps/pseuds/WineLipps
Summary: Makoto visits Cafe Leblanc, on a lonely autumn night.
Relationships: Amamiya Ren/Niijima Makoto, Mentions of Ren x Ann, Niijima Makoto/Persona 5 Protagonist
Kudos: 29





	When Your Birthday Passed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Virtual_Delirium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virtual_Delirium/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Cyber-Violet Volition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13675986) by [Virtual_Delirium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virtual_Delirium/pseuds/Virtual_Delirium). 



Café Leblanc looks empty and dark. But Makoto can smell the linger-scents of coffee roast, wafting in the night breeze. That subtle bittersweetness just beneath the crisp of autumn leaves on this lonely night. The moment inexplicably speaks to Makoto. The loneliness she feels. How she yearns...to feel something of him. Even if it’s merely the smell of coffee. 

_This is all so silly_ , she thinks - pausing outside the door to the café. _Why am I here, I don’t even-_

“Senpai?”

Makoto squeaks a surprised ‘Eep!’. Turning around, she see’s Ren standing. A bloom and thaw at her chest, her heart warms at the sight of the boy she shyly watches at school. Instinctively Makoto raises her hands up, as if to hide her face with a manga. But instead it’s her purse. 

Right. They were not at school. 

“Is everything okay, Makoto?” Ren asked, gentle. 

At once, Makoto wants to give the automatic, “ _I’m okay.”_

But…

Ren is looking at her, inquisitively, that soft tenderness set at his mouth. Those sooty eyelashes languid over the dark half-moons of his pupils. Eyes that Makoto wishes she could stare at forever...if only things are okay.

Things are not okay.

Makoto trembles.

“No,” she enunciates, a small inflection of the emotions she feels right now. “I’m not okay. Can I come in, Ren?”

Keys jingles out of Ren’s hands, the shopping bags he holds rustle. In the bags, Makoto catches labels of pineapple juice? She innocently wonders why. 

Ren pauses at the door, looking at Makoto. She knows what he is thinking. Is it appropriate for them to be alone together at five minutes to midnight, the hour of forgotten glass slippers and wicked spells...Makoto knows Ren is weighing what Ann would think of all this. Of them, together alone.

“Please…” Makoto says softly. “I’ve...been so lonely. Since my birthday, you were the only one there for me.” 

As she is talking, Makoto feels saline wetness on her cheeks. Ren’s expression softens. And right in that moment, _she knows_. Makoto knows Ren understands her like no one else. Just as she understands him better than anyone else, even Ann and Shiori. 

“I haven’t been a good ‘friend’, haven’t I?” says Ren; his voicing lilting with unwritten sorrows.

“No. I did not mean it-”

“Come on in. It’s cold outside, Makoto,” says Ren. 

Makoto’s breath catches.

“Are you...sure?”

Ren cups her cheek with his free hand. Like an alchemical reaction that turns sorrow into gold, Makoto turns her cheek against his warm palm, her eyes fluttering.

Into Leblanc she follows him. Into the night, of coffee cups, secrets and healing. 


End file.
